11,000 third batch of “Epstein Papers” publicly raised controversy regarding Trump and members of the British royal family
The U.S. Department of Justice released a new batch of a total of 11,000 “Epstein documents” on the 23rd, the largest batch released by the department so far, involving many sensitive content involving U.S. President Trump, members of the British royal family, and others. Like the previous two batches, the new disclosed documents still contain large deletions, with limited content that can serve as a “hardweight.” And due to work being delayed and “hidden,” the U.S. Department of Justice, which has already been criticized for this work, recently once again “made a fool of itself.”
Trump couple, Epstein and his mistress Maxwell together (Visual China)
According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on 24, Trump‘s appearance in the latest batch of “Epstein Papers” was significantly more frequent than in the previous two batches. The documents revealed that a New York federal prosecutor in an e-mail in January 2020 (the recipient‘s name was hidden) said that Trump had boarded Epstein’s private plane “far more often than reported.” Between 1993 and 1996, Trump boarded at least eight times, with his son Eric, daughter Tiffany, and ex-wife Melps also traveling with him. On one trip in 1993, only Trump and Epstein were passengers on the private plane. More strikingly, Epstein‘s mistress, Maxwell, shared a plane with Trump at least four times. As a central figure in the “Lolly Island” incident, Maxwell had previously been sentenced to 20 years in prison. And on these trips, not only were “potential witnesses in the Maxwell case” on board, but the relevant travel times also coincided with the times Maxwell was involved in the case investigated by the U.S. prosecution.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who has been expelled from the British royal family, has once again become the focus. The latest documents reveal a suspicious correspondence from August 2001, in which a mysterious person known as “The Invisible Man” contacted Maxwell, stating that he was “summering with the royal family at Balmoral” and asking if the other party “had found me some ‘unreasonable’ friends.” Although the identity of “The Invisible Man” is not specified in the documents, the phrasing, content, and testimony of the victims all point to this disgraced former prince, and the letter‘s reference to “Balmoral” is believed to refer to Balmoral Castle, the British royal summer resort. Earlier this year, Andrew had been stripped of his honorary titles and titles and removed from the royal estate.
The new batch of documents also made a rare mention of the “conspirators” in the Epstein case. According to a 2019 FBI communication, Epstein had a total of 10 party associates involved during his lifetime, with six of them being subpoenaed. Among these, the name of former CEO of “Victoria‘s Secret” Wexler was not deleted. In response, his lawyer urgently clarified that Wexler had fully cooperated with the case investigation, but he was neither a accomplice nor a subject of investigation, and had not been contacted after providing relevant information to investigators. The BBC said that since Epstein was dead, his party associates naturally became a focus of attention from the victim group. After the details about the “conspirators” were revealed, a Democratic congressman criticized the Justice Department for deliberately concealing these investigations and serious lack of transparency.
The Guardian reported that Trump spoke for the first time after the Justice Department‘s release of the “Epstein Papers” on the 22nd, ostensibly expressing “sympathy” for some Democrats, including Clinton. He said that he had a good relationship with Clinton and did not want to see his photo published, but “this is exactly what Democrats and a few terrible Republicans are asking for.” He also said that many people were extremely angry after the photo was released, because some of them could face total reputation ruin simply by accidentally contacting Epstein. On the same day, Clinton issued a statement through a spokesperson, ridiculing the Justice Department‘s covert release as “intentional protection of someone,” calling on the Trump administration to immediately release everything related to Clinton, and saying provocatively, “We don‘t need such protection.”
According to CNN and other media outlets, the U.S. Department of Justice also emphasized the existence of “false allegations against the president” following the release of the latest batch of documents, calling these allegations “baseless and completely false.” CNN ridiculed the statement as “confusing” as they should have responded to the documents with an objective neutral attitude, but this statement seems to be “Trump‘s personal lawyer” eager to defend the president. In addition, some have found that the content deliberately blacked out by the Department of Justice is actually easy to recover, with some places requiring graphics processing software, and other paragraphs that can be viewed in full simply by highlighting text, copying and pasting.